Bexar County district attorney names veteran prosecutor to head new civil rights division
Daryl Harris to lead 4-person staff; division to focus on officer-involved shootings
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SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales on Tuesday announced that veteran prosecutor Daryl Harris will lead a newly established civil rights division within the DA’s office.
The division was founded following the civil unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minnesota police custody.
The Bexar County Commissioners Court approved the division and allocated funding for it.
“The big motivation, as far as I’m concerned, in the establishment of this division and the reason I sought funding for it, is because of after George Floyd,” Gonzales said Tuesday.
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Bexar County District Attorney’s Office establishes additional information dashboards on its website
DA Joe Gonzales says dashboards provide transparency
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SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales announced Friday that his office has added two new dashboards to its website.
The DA’s office website now includes information on cases in the Central Trial Division that involve serious felonies and magistrate cases.
“What I’ve done is created these dashboards in an effort to be more transparent to the public,” Gonzales said. “This is, for lack of a better way to put it, our progress report.”
Gonzales is midway through his first term as District Attorney. He said that, in addition to the public, law enforcement will also be gleaning information from the dashboards.
In San Antonio, crime victims and accused face long wait for trial dates
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Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales, right, talks with Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff before a press conference last November.Jerry Lara /San Antonio Express-News
Bexar County District Attorney Joe D. Gonzales announced new windows on crime statistics are available on his office website as of Friday, including data showing a significant trial backlog brought on by COVID-19.
“I’m very concerned about the backlog,” Gonzales said in a Zoom video conference with reporters. “This will mean that people who are victims of crime in 2020 may have to wait much longer for justice than they, as well as I, would like.”
Executions in Texas down in 2020, lowest since 1996
Anti-death penalty group says there were fewer executions partially due to COVID-19
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SAN ANTONIO – The state of Texas executed three convicted killers and juries across the state handed down just two death sentences in 2020.
In Bexar County, where the capital murder trial of accused cop killer Otis McKane is on hold due to COVID-19 concerns, there have been only two death sentences imposed since 2009.
”I think Bexar County is really emplematic of this shift, both in terms of jury rejections of the death penalty and prosecutors who are moving the county away from it,” said Kristin Cuellar, of the Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.